STRIKE END NEARS?

The end to industrial action at Atlantic LNG’s Train IV project, signalled by Prime Minister Patrick Manning and a spokesman for the striking workers, Ernest Thompson, on Friday should see a resumption of work on the project tomorrow. We hope. One section of the workers seem to want to resume work after six weeks of no wages. Another section is equally determined to stay out until their demands are met. Conciliation efforts by Public Administration Minister Dr Lenny Saith, last week in a bid to end the impasse which threatened to delay the completion of the liquefied natural gas train, are therefore up in the air. Any further dragging out of the strike would mean an additional loss of countless millions of dollars to Atlantic LNG, its shareholders and LNG distributors. Should the strike end Monday, as hoped, the contractors, Bechtel International, will need to implement strategies to accelerate construction of the plant to meet the year-end deadline for the train’s production start up and export of LNG.

Meanwhile, losses occasioned by any delay will of necessity be extended to Government in terms of lower revenues including but not limited to lesser than anticipated corporation and income taxes and Value Added Tax. In addition, the workers have lost upward of six weeks earnings, and with this there is the domino effect of less money being turned around within the economy. Despite talk of doom and gloom by spokespersons for some business groups and their argument that the industrial dispute at the Train IV project would have chased away potential investors, Prime Minister Manning has indicated otherwise. Not only has he spoken of a possible Train V, but a Train VI as well. These developments will be dependent on a review of the reserves position of natural gas in Trinidad and Tobago, and the availability of natural gas from neighbouring Venezuela. Trinidad and Tobago’s proven natural gas reserves today stand at 35 trillion cubic feet, but probable reserves may lift the figure to between 70 and 100 trillion cubic feet. And while Manning has stated that this country is benefiting from high prices for natural gas, the too rapid depletion of our reserves can pose problems 40 or 50 years from now.

Already, this newspaper in an Editorial published on February 26 in its Business Day section titled “Gas Reserves Sound?” has called on Government to develop a policy “which will link the annual production of oil and natural gas to proven reserves.” This will mean, as we stated then, the need to institute guidelines for restraint on production of crude and natural gas. This apart, however, we are confident that the country looks forward to the end of the drawn out industrial dispute which brought construction of Atlantic LNG’s Train Four project at Point Fortin by Bechtel International to an uncomfortable halt. It was a development with losers and no winners and all too many negative signals.